Adams has become a controversial figure in recent years. Regardless of what you think of him, as someone who has worked in Corporate America for over a decade, there really isn't anything quite like Dilbert to describe the sort of white collar insanity I've had to learn to take in stride. My first workplace as a junior developer was straight out of Dilbert and Office Space. I have a gigantic collection of digitized Dilbert strips that best describe office situations I've run into in real life – many of them including the pointy haired boss.
He's expressed a lot of what I would consider... stupid opinions these days, but I would be sad to learn he's no longer with us.
Probably also because, like e.g. "Yes (Prime) Minister", part of the depicted did come from anecdotes, instead of fantasy.
He spoke at MIT (early 90s?) and I remember him talking about making fun of PacBell colleagues in his comic: They would recognize themselves, ask him to autograph the comic for them, and then go away happy (thus making fun of them a second time.)
Catbert on work life balance: "Give us some balance, you selfish hag" https://steemitimages.com/p/7258xSVeJbKnFEnBwjKLhL15SoynbgJK...
The other, I can never seem to find. They're all in a meeting, and the Pointy Haired Boss says, "This next task is critical yet thankless and urgent, and will go to whoever next makes eye contact with me". Everyone stares at the desk, and then Alice pulls out a hand mirror and angles it between the PHB and Wally.
Better link: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1998-05-05>
> The other, I can never seem to find.
Here you are: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1993-08-30>
https://web.archive.org/web/20230301101359/https://dilbert.c...
At this point, he basically started leaning into controversy for pageviews. He'd start linking to the controversial section of each post right at the top of the post. After a few months or so I had to unsubscribe, after years of reading his blog and Dilbert cartoons/books.
He's become such a gremlin that I won't be 100% sure he's serious about this until he actually dies.
Was sad to me to see someone so good at lampooning absurdity get sucked into such a toxic mindset, but I'll also be sad to hear he's gone and I'm sad to hear he's up against it.
He has had some questionable views all throughout his life. In his book "The Dilbert Future", which was from 1997, the last 2 chapters are some wacky stuff about manifesting - i.e if you write something down 100 times a day every day it will come true and other stuff like that.
And while that may seem a far cry from the alt-right stuff he eschews, its really not - inability to process information clearly and think in reality in lieu of ideology is the cornerstone of conservative thinking.
Of course, you are not going to write down that you will win the lottery and then win.
But most people are their own worst enemy and self limiting to some extent. Focusing on what you want in life, and affirming it to yourself over and over, is effectively a way to brain wash yourself to change your own self limiting behavior and it’s not surprising that this is often successful.
But that's mild compared to what he says. He basically says he can influence the stock market with affirmations.
You should read the chapters. https://www.scribd.com/doc/156175634/the-dilbert-future-pdf. Starts on 218.
He does not say that.
> Starts on 218.
Actually it’s page 246.
A premonition is a fancy name for an unconscious prediction.
Now does are the predictions "good", that is a completely different story. Probably depends on the information going in.
The problem with woo is you can always add more woo (bonus points if it has sciencey glitter). Goes from woowoo to woowoowoo.
Woo has no logical consistency and has nothing predictably predictive.
Ask manifestation believers why they are not successful or rich or whatever? You'll hear some fabulous reasons.
My neighbour paid money (I presume thousands) to do courses on learning how to unblock herself. The stated reason for the failure to manifest was due to blocks. Her explanation of the material was outrageous. I have yet to see the positive effect on her.
I don't manifest, yet I've got things others would like to manifest. Not sure there that fits in with the woo.
But after some time goes by and you get pinched in the mortgage crash, or your wife hits you with a divorce, or you get cancer, if you really believe you manifest everything into your life, then you have to believe you manifested the bad stuff too. So why did you do that to yourself? It's a rough belief system then.
Truly a master of manifesting my own reality, I suppose? heh. But seriously though, in think in the vain of the above, if "manifestation" is what someone needs to do as their trello or jira for themselves, more power to them.
Not even that. He says that affirmations resulted in him having a premonition. He does not generalize or predict that this will happen for other people, or even himself in the future.
He does not. I can’t prove a negative, but you, being the one making an assertion, could provide a quote (with context) which shows your assertion correct. Please do so.
> Even more interesting was the suggestion that this technique would influence your environment directly and not just make you more focused on your goal.
> I don't know if there is one universe or many. If there are many, I don't know for certain that you can choose your path. And if you can choose your path, I don't know that affirmations are necessarily the way to do it. But I do know this: When I act as though affirmations can steer me, I consistently get good results.
I'm not the person you replied to, but I would say that "He basically argues that our thoughts can influence reality" is a fair description of these quotes and the rest of the chapter around it. Some of it is him referencing what other people told him, and he certainly hedges his statements a lot, but I certainly read it as him believing that his affirmations are directly influencing reality.
To me, the quotes you give seems aimed at people with preexisting beliefs in multiple universes or quantum woo, and he seems to want to convince people that affirmations can be viewed as perfectly reasonable in their existing belief systems. This does not mean that he believes what they believe.
Where I differ from you in my take on this is that I also weigh what isn't there. He doesn't provide any form of alternate explanation. Nowhere does he say anything that comes close to "I don't believe that affirmations work this way" or anything of the like. I also don't agree that his hedges clarify anything, rather they muddy the waters.
He presents a thesis, presents other people's arguments for that thesis, presents no arguments against, and then explains that he lives his life in a way consistent with believing in that thesis. The hedges fill one function: to make it harder to argue against him. If the arguments aren't his, the chapter stands even if the arguments fall.
To me, that is basically arguing for the thesis, but in a roundabout and quite defensive way. What other point would you say that that chapter conveys?
There is also the possible half point between atheism and agnosticism, where people self identify as atheism but will act according to some religious concept because they view it as important to their lives. To me it indicate strongly that beliefs, any beliefs, sits along a spectrum. A person can live their life in a way consistent with believing in something, either because they believe in it, or they don't know, or that they don't believe in it but still behave in that way because of a reason or an other.
He said he wanted to get rich on the stock market. Wrote an affirmation. Had a dream to by Chrysler stock. Bought stock, stock went up. By his conclusion, he manifested stock going up (because of how thoughts and perception can influence reality and e.t.c)
> If it's possible to control your environment through your thoughts or steer your perceptions (or soul if you prefer) through other universes, I'll bet the secret to doing that is a process called "affirmations."
> I first heard of this technique from a friend who had read a book on the topic. I don't recall the name of the book, so I apologize to the author for not mentioning it. My information came to me secondhand. I only mention it here because it formed my personal experience.
> The process as it was described to me involved visualizing what you want and writing it down fifteen times in a row, once a day, until you obtain the thing you visualized.
> The suggested form would be something like this:
> "I, Scott Adams, will win a Pulitzer Prize."
> The thing that caught my attention is that the process doesn't require any faith or positive thinking to work. Even more interesting was the suggestion that this technique would influence your environment directly and not just make you more focused on your goal. It was alleged that you would experience what seemed to be amazing coincidences when using the technique. These coincidences would be things seemingly beyond your control and totally independent of your efforts (at least from a visual view of reality).
He then goes on to discuss stock, him taking the GMAT, etc. He later continues:
> I used the affirmations again many times, each time with unlikely success. So much so that by 1988, when I decided I wanted to become a famous syndicated cartoonist, it actually felt like a modest goal.
Then he talks about syndicating Dilbert.
He doesn't say, "I can influence the stock market with affirmations," but if you read what he wrote, he is very clearly arguing that you can change reality with your thoughts.
He basically argues that you can alter reality with affirmations.
Edit: BTW, you can’t copy the text on that PDF.
If you want to read a book that's closer to how the universe actually works, and how your mind should operate, read it: https://archive.org/details/B-001-001-709
Plausibly quite true. But given (1) how often the succession turned violent after a monarch died, and (2) how very little power the average person had - I'd say such prayers were entirely reasonable. If they made "life in the lower 99%" just 1% more bearable, that'd be a worthwhile RoI.
Demon-Haunted World is a book worth reading...but Carl often seems to forget that 99% of humans are neither huge science geeks (as he is), nor rationalist robots.
E.g when the Spanish Empire ruled the world, the British were not very happy about that. With the British Empire, the French and the Germans fought them with every opportunity.
Knowing how most kings and queens have behaved throughout history, I think Sagan suffered from a faulty premise. The queen everyone loved best made it to 96.
And yes, that is basically what he says.
With infinite possible universes, you can guide which universe becomes your reality through affirmations.
Wacky perhaps, but the philosophies of consciousness and quantum mechanics are kinda wacky too...
---
On a relevant point, he talks about curing cancer.
Some minds only think when asked to.
A lot of time has past since I read Scott Adams view on manifesting. I got a decent way through before I realised it wasn't satire. It did seem clear to me that he was advocating a form of manifesting that went beyond either of those principles. That benefits came from manifesting in ways that no-other influence from yourself would be possible. That's essentially declaring it to be magic. Psychology I can believe, if you want me to believe in magic you're going to need a bit more.
From the point of view of an ADHD person, it doesn't surprise me at all that someone who had the ability to do a dumb task like manifesting would also have the ability to do meaningful things that that I find nearly impossible.
Can we not do this kind of thing please?
Adams's version of manifesting is "if you write stuff down, it's more likely that outcomes outside of your control will help you achieve your goal."
Those are not the same thing.
The concept of the book, as I understand it, is focusing your consciousness on something you want ”will cause the universe to bring it to you”.
The concept is silly to me (it’s the steps that you take to actually achieve the goal that make the difference), but in a way, it is a prerequisite to achieving the goal.
My biggest complaint is this type of thinking usually accompanies lots of “woo” thinking.
> Those are not the same thing.
Here's an idea: get informed on the basics of what you are discussing before you tell me what it is and isn't.
Basically, lets say that you naturally have the drive to do work that is valuable and can make you rich, but you are just not sure if it will.
Writing down 100 times a day that you want to become rich and then becoming rich is not really related - you were probably going to be rich anyways, or on the most charitable interpretation, the writing helped you stay focused.
Now imagine you tell someone with poor mental health who struggling at a low paying job that all you have to do is write something 100 times a day to make it happen.
It aligns very closely with conservative thinking - a lot of conservative people think they worked hard for what they have, not realizing that they have been given a massive runway (such as not having college loans to pay back, being in a good school district, having parents who aren't crazy busy with work to dedicate time to support them, and so on)
>Now imagine you tell someone with poor mental health who struggling at a low paying job that all you have to do is write something 100 times a day to make it happen.
Sorry, did you think I was suggesting that it was good advice? Or that Doctor's should prescribe it?
> It aligns very closely with conservative thinking - a lot of conservative people think they worked hard for what they have, not realizing that they have been given a massive runway (such as not having college loans to pay back, being in a good school district, having parents who aren't crazy busy with work to dedicate time to support them, and so on)
The train has left the station. I do not think you were on it.
The podcast If Books Could Kill manages to stumble on a fair amount of overlap between "power of positive thinking" / "The Secret" crap, and right wing politics in the books they review.
The sheer volume of "woo" and positive affirmation manifestation among my friends is vastly higher on the left side of the spectrum than the right.
Perhaps it's more to do with extreme personalities and wishful thinking.
That stuff is mostly harmless speculation/belief, and isn't equivalent to outright denying reality and seeking 'alternate facts'.
And while that obviously has limits, and is far from the magical technique some might claim - it's very hard to argue against things that work.
Visualization is a thing, something happens when you can see it happening.
It is absolutely not a unique failure to conservatives. But it does explain why there is so much interchange between crunchy granola hippies and qanon militias.
The actual cornerstone of conservatism is an instinctual preference for stability, order, and the familiar. The danger arises when this instinct is hijacked by a rigid ideology that resists truth and seeks control rather than continuity.
Which is, you know, what the American right is doing.
... which inevitably breaks down when fundamental assumptions become disproven. And that's the point. Many "moderate" Conservatives still believe in the "trickle down" economy theory or that government debt is inherently bad and a government's budget needs to be balanced.
Both have been proven time and time again to be not just wrong, but outright disastrous in their consequences, and yet Germany voted that ideology into chancellorship, not to mention what is currently going on in the US.
The US seems to be combining the worst of both ideologies. I can't imagine what happens next.
Basically, conservatives got increasingly angry (because things inevitably do change), so they decided to give up on conservatism and flip the table instead. This also ties into one of the commonly-cited dynamics of fascism - invoking an idea of some imagined idyllic past, as a reason that the current society needs to be attacked and destroyed.
I had never voted for a major party candidate in a national election until Biden 2020 and Harris 2024. I consider those solidly conservative votes, and attribute them due to my getting older.
And "order" doesn't fully capture it either, because the concept it gestures at can be more accurately described as "hierarchy" - as Kirk puts it, "a conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize "natural" distinctions".
In other words, everyone has a proper place in society, with some above and others below, and any attempts to remove that hierarchy are moral wrongs which require the transgressors to be put back in their place.
You can see how that core belief is intrinsically dangerous, and how nearly every controversial conservative belief about social classes falls out of it.
(It's also worth noting that this explains why conservatism's earliest champions were supporters of the aristocracy, and also why conservatism is more beloved by the old-money wealthy than move-fast-and-break-things new-money tech.)
See here is the thing- you don't know this is true. You never actually went and looked at the science or verified how much of it is fake. And yet, at the same time, you benefited from this science when its convenient to you because you probably don't realize that a medication or something you are using came from left leaning university.
This is what I mean by being out of touch with reality.
<< See here is the thing- you don't know this is true. You never actually went and looked at the science or verified how much of it is fake.
Technically speaking, neither do you unless you went over said data yourself. That said, some people did[2] and found that a good chunk of current studies can't be replicated. What does that say about the state of said science? Does it support your position? Does it support parent's post?
<< something you are using came from left leaning university.
The problem is not with left leaning or even right leaning. It is with people who blindly proclaim "Science!", but, at best, are an equivalent of annoying fanboys and, at worst, dilettantes, who feel compelled to use power of the state to squash people, who, in their mind, undermine their POV[1].
<< This is what I mean by being out of touch with reality.
And somehow, just to top it all off, they feel superior.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko [2]https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778
Yeah, that actually is an inability to process reality. Stuff changes, and things have never been stable or orderly.
If you are writing "Repetitive Strain Injury".
and with a population desperate for any improvement in life these things end up finding a place, just like all the betting platforms all over the place. the only reason to bet is if you think you'll win.
He's a racist. "Stupid" is putting it gently. Let's just call a spade a spade. Racist. You can say it with me.
Just to be clear, I'm making zero value judgement about your assertion, I don't know (or care to know) Adams enough to form an option on his character.
The phrase is referring to the tool. It is not a reference to the derogatory slang term at all. It dates back to Plutarch's Apophthegmata Laconica, and the earliest version of it that appeared in English was in 1542.
All of that was centuries before "spade" also became used as derogatory slang. The phrase is no more racist than "like white on rice".
Chapelle's SNL monolog about Trump is pretty spot on too.
However, the fundamental ideas of System 1 and 2 have made me rethink so many things.
Dilbert is about the 90s.
Adams, himself? Not so much. I think he tends to have a rather nasty outlook on humanity, and I had a hard time reconciling it.
I do know that he was/is pretty much about as far away from Diamond Joe* as you can get. Interesting that they seem to be fighting the same battle.
Same thing with Blu-Ray of Pulp Fiction though I believe Weinstein Company has given up all rights to most of their movies.
Don't stream it and don't buy a new copy unless someone completely unrelated owns it now, but you can still listen to, watch, or read the stuff you loved before you knew what was going. Whatever you already owned didn't suddenly become toxic. Used book/music/movie stores exist. Piracy is always an option.
That's not to say a few people haven't managed to ruin it beyond my ability to enjoy their content no matter how much I used to love them, but there's no reason to give up something you enjoy just because you learn the person or a key person behind it sucks.
I still ask for the PSA test. I've never been offered ultrasound.
Dilbert was a good comic though.
Well, I enjoyed Dilbert for years, in any case. It shares the throne with "Office Space" for representing the pre-remote-work era of corporate IT.
I love that show enough to where I actually bought an animation cel from it a few years ago, and it hangs in my basement office.
"We think you have missed an important demographic — Consumers."
<Dilbert looks back with a blank stare>
---
Godspeed Scott. Thank you for all the laughs.
I've seen the pattern repeat with other data collection as well -- "anonymous" data collection or "anonymized" data almost never is.
It's been a fun exercise in software architecture. Because I actually care about this.
But we keep pushing this annual survey another year since we never seem to be ready to actually implement it (due to other priorities)
The thing is, as soon as you allow free-text entry, the exercise becomes moot assuming you got a solid training corpus of emails to train an AI on - basically the same approach that Wikipedia activists used to do two decades ago to determine "sockpuppet" accounts.
Over the course of 4 years I think it was only used 3 times. Most people assumed it was some kind of trap. It wasn’t, I genuinely wanted honest feedback, and thought some people were too shy to speak up in a group setting, so wanted to give options.
Management can 'drill down' to get information on how specific teams responded.
One of the things they mentioned doing is using a statistical (differential privacy?) model to limit the depth, to prevent any specific persons responses being revealed unless it was shared with a substantial number of other responses.
Surprisingly difficult when you consider e.g. a team lead reading a statement like "of the 10 people in your team, one is highly dissatisfied with management" - they have personal knowledge of the situation and are going to know which person it is.
So on the card I provided with my gift, I signed off the name of someone else in class, and partially erased it. Made sure it was still somewhat legible and then wrote "From your secret santa" beneath it.
They didn't believe the gift was from me even after the teacher provided them with the original draw, and their supposed gift giver identified someone else as their recipient.
After some shuffling at work, I ended up spending some time under an awful manager. She approached me after an anonymous round of feedback and said "I noticed you wrote _____." I had, in fact, not written that.
On some level, having her guess wrong seemed even worse, but it also felt nice to be able to honestly say "I did not." Hopefully taught her to respect anonymity next time.
My dad's still ok. He had some localized radiation to beat back the biggest tumors on his spine, then did a round of chemo. This past summer he did a fun immunotherapy treatment, not CAR-T... but something more like that than checkpoint inhibitors. Otherwise his tumors have been kept to almost nothing due to hormone therapy.
Unfortunately, what eventually happens is you accumulate enough hormone therapty resistant cancer cells that the tumors start growing again in a meaningful way, and then there's not much that can be done. I assume this is the stage that Scott Adams has had and that he's been battling it for many years by now. With President Biden, it seems likely that his prostate cancer will respond to treatment, and if this is the case then he will likely die of something else, as is usual now for old men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer.
That in and of itself puts him above what I've come to expect from this low-bar dip in American culture. Good for him.
> “I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has. I also have prostate cancer that has also spread to my bones, but I’ve had it longer than he’s had it – well, longer than he’s admitted having it,” Adams said.
The use of the word "admitted" implies that Biden is either lying about how far it has progressed, or that he has known about it longer than he has admitted.
Which is probably true. And it's fine, he has no obligation to disclose this until he wants to. In contrast his dementia though ....... that's something he should have disclosed earlier.
Edit: "Several doctors told Reuters that cancers like this are typically diagnosed before they reach such an advanced stage." from https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-cancer-diagnosis-pro...
The implied timelines don’t match.
But thing is—boy who cried wolf—not sure if he actually has the prognosis of cancer he says he has? It sounds mean, I reckon he does have it, but his past descriptions of health problems were confusing enough that I wouldn't be surprised if he recovers next year and spins it into a story about how he found a cure.
Even if he is being 100% truthful, this is kind of crappy behavior - the kind we expect from him.
hug your family and spend more time with them.
I don't think he's making that up.
I absolutely don't think, 100%, not a chance in hell he's making this up.
But I appreciate your comment, it's more data for me to engulf, you never stop learning about the human mind.
A lot of men die with prostate cancer, because only very few die from it. And if you belong to the former group, knowing about it or doing any kind of intervention means a massive loss in quality of life. So the best course of action overall is to close our eyes and stop looking. And hope you don't belong to the latter group.
(Yes, yes whole body scans exist but these are largely pseudo-medical scams that don't deliver what they promise. I'm saying deliver on it, within reason.)
Perhaps this plan just needs better marketing. Instead of dividing tumors into benign and malignant we could have a third category for malignant but slow-growing.
edit: Ah ok. Risk of over-treatment by broad scanning? "Active surveillance aims to avoid unnecessary treatment of harmless cancers while still providing timely treatment for those who need it." according to NHS.
For a good short overview: https://www.cancer.gov/types/prostate/psa-fact-sheet
And read “is the PSA test recommended…”
https://thennt.com/nnt/psa-test-to-screen-for-prostate-cance...
I wish they did, of course. I personally lost a close friend to prostate cancer last year. He was 41 and was, before the cancer, one of the healthiest and most athletic people I knew.
The first inkling he had that anything was wrong was a backache that wouldn't go away; a stage 4 diagnosis ensued. He held on for 21 months from the onset of symptoms before the cancer took him.
I don't have a strong opinion about the tests either way, but I wasn't the one getting the biopsies.
I have high psa levels. 17.
Had a biopsy. Turns out I have a really large prostate. My doctor said that some just naturally have larger prostates and the larger ones produce more psa. The psa density function put my levels at normal when taking in to consideration the size. The biopsy came back negative.
Thankfully with all the voice actors and other talent that went into the show, it's easier to disconnect it from the hateful person Adams ended up revealing himself to be.
Every time I see someone kitted out in VR gear, I think about his prediction that the Star Trek holodeck will be humanity's last invention and I'm very glad they don't have a button that can beam the next person waiting for their turn into a concrete wall.
Dilbert comes down to the caves where trolls (accountants) reside and gets a tour. The guide points to a troll sitting behind a desk, and mumbling in a stupor: "nine, nine, nine...".
Guide: And this is our random numbers generator.
Dilbert: Are you sure those are random?
Guide: That's the problem with randomness - you can never be sure.
Edit: Found it here: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-quest-for-rand....
And thank you, Scott - many laughs thanks to you.
Very nice.
And also, what a cool read that was, thanks for sharing the article.
0 and 1 are special and so are all prime numbers. 6 is out because it's the maximum die throw. And one figure is more ordinary than two figures, or negatives, or decimals. That leaves 4 and 9.
[Mordac] "Security is more important than usability. In a perfect world, no one would able able to use anything."
[Asok's computer screen]: "To complete login procedure, stare directly at the sun."
https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1998-08-24
It has hit home a time or two when the "managers" hire in a "consultant".
35" monitor 20 megs of ram 1.2 gigabytes of hard disk space
https://web.archive.org/web/20150205042406/https://dilbert.c...
I remember his remark about Hillary's campaign logo looking like directions to the hospital.
I'll miss him.
He was the first to publish an open way to communicate with him in order to out the corporate crazies, and readers did in droves, explaining the inanity of their workplace and getting secret retribution for stuff they clearly couldn't complain about publicly.
A good percentage of youtubers and substackers today actively cultivate their readership as a source of new material. They're more of a refining prism or filter for an otherwise unstated concerns than a source of wisdom.
Doing this seems to require identifying with your readers and their concerns. That could be disturbing to the author if the tide turns, or to the readers if they find out their role model was gaming them or otherwise unreal, but I imagine it is pretty heady stuff.
I hope he (and anyone facing cancer) has people with whom he can share honestly, and has access to the best health care available.
Grand Budapest Hotel starts with the author stating that when you're an author, people simply tell you stories and you don't need to come up with them anymore!
https://dynamicsgptipsandtraps.wordpress.com/wp-content/uplo...
"The clue meter is reading zero."
Everyone at Motorola recognized it immediately.
"You don't argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn't eat candy for dinner. You don't punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don't argue when a women tells you she's only making 80 cents to your dollar. It's the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles." -Scott Adams
Hundreds of newspapers across the country will stop running the “Dilbert” comic strip after its creator said on a YouTube livestream that Black people were “a hate group” and that white people should “just get the hell away from Black people".
In the video from Tuesday that led to backlash, Mr. Adams, who is white, said he had “started identifying as Black” years ago and then brought up a poll by Rasmussen Reports that found that 53 percent of Black Americans agreed with the statement “It’s okay to be white.”
Mr. Adams said in the video that he took issue with Black Americans who were polled and who had not agreed with that statement.
“That’s a hate group, and I don’t want to have anything to do with them,” he said, adding that it “makes no sense to help Black Americans if you’re white.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white
>"It's okay to be white" (IOTBW) is an alt-right slogan which originated as part of an organized trolling campaign on the website 4chan's discussion board /pol/ in 2017. A /pol/ user described it as a proof of concept that an otherwise innocuous message could be used maliciously to spark media backlash. Posters and stickers stating "It's okay to be white" were placed in streets in the United States as well as on campuses in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
>The slogan has been supported by white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Media coverage of the event, including Fox News host Tucker Carlson asking "What's the correct position? That it's not okay to be white?", was seen as reacting in the way that the trolling campaign had intended.
Brooks, Marcus A. (November 1, 2020). "It's okay to be White: laundering White supremacy through a colorblind victimized White race-consciousness raising campaign". Sociological Spectrum. 40 (6): 400–416. doi:10.1080/02732173.2020.1812456. ISSN 0273-2173.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02732173.2020.1...
"Dilbert comic strip dropped: What is the 'It's Okay to be White' slogan used by Scott Adams?". Firstpost. February 28, 2023. Retrieved March 1, 2023.
https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/dilbert-dropped-its-oka...
"'It's Okay To Be White' Was A Planned Hate Crime From 4chan Internet Trolls"
https://web.archive.org/web/20180625104237/http://www.cfwera...
"The 'It's Okay to Be White' meme was backed by neo-Nazis and David Duke"
https://www.newsweek.com/neo-nazi-david-duke-backed-meme-was...
Edit:
>txcwg002 0 minutes ago | parent | context | unflag | on: Dilbert creator Scott Adams says he will die soon ...
>WTF. It's not ok to be [color]?
You're falling for it hook line and sinker, or just being a performative racist troll. Read the Wikipedia article and the referenced articles. The explanation is there, spelled out quite clearly, with verifiable citations and references and evidence, nothing to "wtf" about. It's quite calculated and intentional manipulation, and your knee-jerk reaction is precisely how the white supremacists who spread that slogan intended to manipulate you into reacting.
Knighthack earnestly and curiously asked, "What "ugly things" exactly did he say?" and I answered his question truthfully. If you think it's disrespectful for me to quote Adams' own words, or don't want his words repeated with proper attribution and context, then your problem is with Adams, not me.
I didn't even get into the crazy self-aggrandizing sock puppet stuff, but thanks for reminding me -- his bizarre unhinged behavior goes way back:
Dilbert creator outed for using sock puppets on Metafilter and Reddit to talk himself up (he is also plannedchaos on reddit):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2452527
https://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Educatio...
https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/gqzgx/dilbert_creat...
"How many people think I'm actually Scott Adams writing about myself in third person?" -Scott Adams as "plannedchaos" sock puppet
"Is it Adams' enormous success at self-promotion that makes you jealous and angry?" -Scott Adams as "plannedchaos" sock puppet
To get a bit off-topic...
R.E. "It's okay to be white": I think this slogan is the perfect example of effective propaganda. Out of context, at face value, it appears mundane and uncontestable. But in context it holds a wildly different meaning. I definitely saw members of my family fall for this exact trap. Retired parents spending too much time watching "news" aren't so different from terminally online incels.
Important because it should remind us that when we think people are acting wildly obtuse that we should question if we are missing something. Seems like the best way to combat getting caught in those echo chambers and identify propaganda. I think we're getting so used to crazy (rather, the perception that others are crazy) that we aren't setting off these "alarms", where we would if we were talking about "real people". IDK what it says about how we view one another, but I think it is concerning.
I don't understand what you mean. Political ideologies are real, most people aren't crazy or duped by propaganda. They aren't just haplessly regurgitating 'white lives matter', it's a slogan that aligns with their beliefs, we should take that seriously and not pretend like 'they just don't know what it actually means'.
The more interesting question is: what do we do with the art of people who were revealed to be terrible? I first saw people wrestle with this idea for Michael Jackson and recently it has been a big issue related to Kanye West.
The person who solved global warming/cancer/whatever turns out to be a terrible person? Should we throw away their work, and come to a different answer? Or wait a few generations so people forget and come to the same answer again but the people involved are “pure”?
I’m not advocating a decision here, but I wouldn’t call that low stakes.
I'm mostly out of that environment now, but occasionally put myself in those shoes again and think how odd it would seem to me that people look up to and expect moral righteousness from these people.
I do expect him not to rape, murder, commit fraud, and so on.
One of the things I occasionally notice about conversations in this area is that some people care more about actions that hurt people than property.
If our hyopthetical rockstar trashes a hotel room, wrecks his car and then has a heart attack from cocaine, that might be judged differently than one that joins the local nazi party and attempts to murder someone.
Basically, what do you value more and what can you excuse?
After reading his other work, I can’t really enjoy his comics anymore (and I’m a die hard HP Lovecraft fan, FFS).
Anyway, I recommend not looking his other stuff up.
That's how we have the life we have today. People now seem to be taking it to the extreme, ignoring the rest, even when there is no hint of any good.
What a condescendingly masked, hateful thing to say.
Although I thought his comics growing up were quirky, I was probably too young to appreciate them (xkcd was more my thing anyway).
Knowing more about him and what he says / thinks turns me off Dilbert entirely.
I doubt he'll go as he says. Sounds like a plead for sympathy / attention.
Sad that this man is dying of cancer and letting his “enemies” live rent free in his head. I hope he can find some peace before he passes.
Why deal with six months of vicious comments alongside well intentioned pitiful condolences when you could only have to deal with one or two month’s worth?
I would have done the same thing. For what it’s worth, I think an exceedingly small number of people can actually refuse to let those who hate your guts “live rent free in your head”.
I know this will sound dumb, but it's really hard to put into words how much I enjoyed Dilbert in its heyday. I mean at one time Dilbert was one of three web-comics that I read religiously. It was Dilbert, User Friendly, and Sluggy Freelance. The comics weren't just "comics", they mattered to me. Seriously.
Then UF quit publishing new episodes, and then Scott went all alt-right and Dilbert disappeared behind a paywall, and now only Sluggy is still standing. I guess. I have to admit, I quit reading regularly quite some time for reasons I can't even explain.
Anyway... not sure what the relevance of all of this is. Just reminiscing about a day when the 'Net felt a lot different I guess. At any rate, while I'd become less of a "Scott Adams fan" over the last few years, this news still makes me feel absolutely sick. I wouldn't wish prostate cancer on anyone. :-(
I hope some pharma underling might have cooked up some good meds for Adams, despite all the pharma bosses and their backers.
toomuchtodo•9h ago